NZXT Phantom 630 Review

Performance, Testing and Conclusion

It's fair to say that although we're no stranger to NZXT products here at OC3D towers they have always received fair and impartial reviews, as is the case with all manufacturers. If we like something we say so, if we don't like something we're not afraid to say so either, and if we think something is truly god awful we sure as heck make sure you, the paying public, do not part with your hard earned wedge on it. If you've been a frequenter of OC3D for a number of years you'll know what we're getting at here. So how does the Phantom 630 measure up? Well NZXT have nothing to fear. We are more than impressed with the latest sibling to enter the Phantom family.

We know the 630 fits into the family between the larger 820 and the smaller 410, but it might be worth looking at exactly how it stacks up size wise. Comparing it to the larger 820 the 630 is 130mm shorter in height, with depth being roughly the same (only 12mm in it). What is perhaps surprising is that the 630 is in fact slightly wider than the 810 at 245mm as opposed to 235mm. if the saying "Never mind the length, feel the width" holds true then the 630 is at something of an advantage. In terms of size and perhaps flexibility there's a much bigger gap when we step down to the baby of the family. At 215mm the 410 is much slimmer and at only 515mm in height and 532mm in depth is an all-round smaller case. Granted, sharing the same design cues as the two larger cases it is no less imposing when sitting on your desk, and as we saw with project NZXSPC it's entirely possible with a bit of light modding to get a pair of 120.2 Radiators in there.

No such modding is required with the 630 though. The watercooling radiator mounting options for this case are far to extensive to cover in the conclusion, if you want the skinny you'll have to head back to the Technical specification at the start. Suffice to say that the case is able to accept multiples of 120.2 and 140.2 Radiators, and even 120.3s in the roof this obviously means it fully supports NZXT's AIO Kraken Series and the likes of their nemesis the Corsair H100i.

Even if you're not planning to get wet, the 630 is still an awesome air cooling case. Huge 200mm fans are located in the front, roof and door of the case, with an additional 140mm fan in the rear. As with the radiator placements, the options for fan accommodation are far too extensive to be addressed in the conclusion. Worried you're not going to be able to control all those fans? you needn't be, NZXT have included a 30 watt 3 position fan controller, linked to a power distribution hub on the reverse of the Motherboard the 630 is able to route juice to up to 10 fans. Add in the ability to house 170mm CPU coolers, or 200mm units with the door fan removed and it's fair to say you'd be hard pushed to find a cooler that won't fit in here.

We were also particularly impressed with the modular HDD bay system. Although not a new concept and by no means unique to the Phantom 630 or indeed NZXT we did however feel the concept was well applied, giving not just the ability to remove bay modules, but to re locate certain units elsewhere in the case. essentially enabling you to customise the layout to best suite your needs, whether that be front Mounted radiators, huge GPUs or a bit of both.

Building into the 630 is one of the more pleasurable building sessions we've had. there's a real feeling of space with everything just where you need it. Plenty of grommeted cable management holes, with some of the best grommets we've ever seen, and bizarrely quite a few management holes that for some reason NZXT have chosen not to cover. We can't really call this a fault, but we will say it could be better. Still with the good handful of cable ties supplied, and the plethora of mounting points behind the motherboard it's still very easy to do a bang up job on the wiring. In fact, if we ever see one of these cases untidily loomed we will call out the owner publically and call them a girl (harsh we know, but that's how it is).

At £150 the 630 can't be called bargain basement, but then neither is it by any means the most expensive full tower case you can buy. In this price bracket though it is however up against some renowned competition, no least of which is its own cousin, the Switch 810. Don't want a NZXT case? then your £150 will buy you a Raven, a CM Storm Scout, or the ever popular Elysium to name but a few.

Does the 630 have what it takes? We think it does. Do we feel all tingly and excited by it? Yes we do. Do we want to whip out the Dremel and convert the fan cowling to a full window? Good god yes! Rubber grommets aside, the choice of a split window/fan is about the only real criticism we can lay at the feet of the 630 and even then it's subjective at best. For all we know you could be one of those really odd people that like fans in the doors of their cases.

At the start of this review we asked how it would feel to be the middle brother, placed between two very successful siblings. Would you feel a bit better knowing you'd been awarded an OC3D gold? That's two Gold's and a Silver for the Phantom brothers. Not bad at all.

Thanks toNZXTfor sending the 630 in for review, you can discuss your thoughts in the OC3D Forums.

I don't like the look of these at all, but it certainly does have a lot of good features. it's nice to see some things that i was complaining about in the 650d like a grommet above the power supply for routing cables, hard drive cages divided up into 3 sections, and the nice LED that lights up the rear I/O. I'd like to see a subtle light for the front I/O on some cases like the 650D in the future.

First off, thanks for the measurement between the motherboard and the roof; I've been looking around for it for a few days now. You would be surprised (or maybe you wouldn't) to know how often reviewers leave out how thick of a radiator can put in the top. I see the clearance is only 55mm, so I'm going to try and squeeze in a 30mm rad in push/pull since I can't fit in a 60mm rad up top.

I was wondering about how the bottom was looking in terms of radiators, I didn't see any measurements in the review. I will probably keep the 3 hdd bay (I'm a bit of a digital pack rat) hooked in it's default position and get rid of all the rest of the bays and put the thickest 240mm rad in the bottom in push/pull that it will allow. It looks like a ton of space, so I'm guessing I could fit at least a 45mm rad in push/pull.

I'm going to probably end up getting this case, it has pretty much everything I need in terms of looks and watercooling potential. That side fan/mesh area on the side panel has a date with a jigsaw though, only thing I don't like about the case. Thanks again for the review, now I can now start ordering parts.

I have always wondered about airflow in these cases. I mean taking air from inside and out. Especially if one is going to be water cooling. Anything in the way disrupts flow and not having any mesh panels clear of any obstacles would impede air flow. Even some perforated panels impede air flow and create fan noise.

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